Early in "Davidson on Intentionality and Externalism", Hacker writes (p.542)
In response to the current 'internalist/externalist' debate, [Davidson] has elaborated his conception of the individuation of belief, taking for granted whatever qualifications are necessary vis-a-vis the holism of belief and interpretation. I shall do likewise in expounding and evaluating his claims.This is a bluff. Hacker does no such thing.
Throughout the paper, Hacker considers something less than a strawman -- something called a "causal theory of meaning" is what is actually criticized, and Davidson has never held anything remotely like that. Davidson holds to the Quinean thesis that reference is inscrutable, for one thing. Nothing below the level of a sentence can have propositional content. Hacker seems to forget Frege's point that a word can have meaning only in the context of a sentence; he offers explanations for the meanings of words, and claims that these "meaning explanations" play some essential role in language ("What a term 'K' means is determined by what counts in a linguistic community as a correct explanation of its meaning"). Neither that Hacker offers, nor anything like it, plays such a role in language. Language does not work that way.
Not only does Hacker fail to consider that Davidson's externalism is part & parcel with the rest of "radical interpretation", but he doesn't even seem to consider that Davidson's externalism might be related to the rest of his "unified theory" -- Davidson's externalism is simply a part of "the externalism of Putnam, Burge, and Davidson". But these three are very different sorts of externalist; Burge & Davidson are particularly opposed to one another*, and Putnam isn't even a Tarskian. Hacker even gets Davidson's term of art wrong. Earlier on the same page he says that Davidson "has argued that all understanding of the speech of others involves interpretation or radical translation." "Radical translation" is Quine's schtick; Davidson denies that radical translation could suffice for understanding, and his "radical interpretation" is meant to overhaul & correct Quine's approach.
Further, Davidson does not claim that all understanding involves interpretation; for Davidson, perception is "direct", not mediated by anything which could be interpreted. Davidson does claim that something like radical interpretation is actually at work in how we understand one another, and because of the holism of the mental all propositional attitudes are -- in a sense -- tied to radical interpretation. And perception involves propositional content. But peceiving that things are thus and so is not a matter of interpreting anything; the belief strikes one straightaway, mediately merely causally (and not epistemicly) by any intermediary. Hacker gets this wrong -- he claims that "pace Davidson" understanding what someone says typically involves no interpretation. But Davidson can grant this, since one can, for instance, hear that someone is saying that things are thus-and-so.
Hacker has written a very bad paper. He evinces not the slightest comprehension of what Davidson is trying to do. Indeed, Davidson's views on intentionality are hardly even misunderstood in the paper -- for Hacker to be getting them wrong, he'd have to have something like them in view. The externalism of "Knowing One's Own Mind" and "The Myth of the Subjective" does not explain intentionality, for Davidson. Intentionality is tied to the normativity of the propositional attitudes, as shown forth by looking at what would be involved in "radical interpretation", in interpretation of a speaker with whom one initially shares no language. Hacker doesn't put any of this in view. He doesn't even look at the relevant essays. He briefly mentions "Thought and Talk", once, on page 542, but it plays no real role in the paper.
Davidson claims that "all thought and language must have a foundation in such direct historical connections [as saying "There's the moon" when the moon is in view]", but Hacker misunderstands the rhetorical force of "foundation"-talk, here. The intentionality of thought & language is not built on these "direct historical connections"; what Davidson means by his claim is simply that one condition for being able to understand a speaker is to take them as reacting to objects in an environment one shares with them -- not simply the fact that they are so reacting but the taking of them as so reacting by the interpreter is what does important work in making understanding possible. Throughout the paper, Hacker considers only a single speaker reacting to an environment, and notes that the causal facts about all this are irrelevant to the meaningfulness of language. The Davidsonian strategy of "triangulation" is nowhere present; only the causal facts, and not attributions of causal relations, are considered as possibly being what Davidson is calling our attention to.
Hacker devotes a significant portion of the paper to attacking Davidson's "swampman" thought-experiment. It is a bad thought-experiment, and Davidson abandoned it later on.
"But I confess that Swampman now embarrasses me. The reason is that science fiction stories that imagine things that never happen provide a poor testing ground for our intuitions concerning concepts like the concept of a person, or what constitutes thought. These common concepts work as well as required in the world as we know it. We have multiple criteria for applying most important concepts, and the imagined cases are ones in which these criteria, which normally go together, point in different directions. We ask what we would say in such cases? Who knows? Why should we care?”(the comment thread here has more details on the ignominious fate of the swampman argument. Looking up that quote has also reminded me of how bizarre the whole debate about empirically-existing swampmen was. Man, I love "The Valve".)
---Donald Davidson, “Interpretation: Hard in Theory, Easy in Practice”
Hacker occasionally quotes Davidson's reference to the role of "terminal elements in the conditioning process". He simply reads this phrase wrong -- Davidson means the distal causes of our beliefs, as opposed to the proximal ones, are the ones we care about in interpretation. It's an anti-Quinean point. (See "Meaning, Truth, and Evidence" for the juicy details.) Hacker reads it as referring to the "terminal elements" of the conditioning process -- speakers who are conditioned to react in certain ways. Thus he quotes Davidson's phrasing approvingly on page 545 despite denying that the "terminal elements in the conditioning process" (the objects reacted to) play a role in what people mean when they talk & think. Davidson's "terminal elements" are the things in the world that we are conditioned to react to, as is obvious when the phrase is looked at in context (page 44 in "Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective"). Hacker's "terminal elements" are "uses of words" and "explanations of meanings"; nothing like what Davidson talks about.
Hacker notes that the learning of a language is the mastering of a technique, and that the technique mastered is a normative, rule-governed one. This is entirely correct & salutary. But he notes this to oppose the characterization of the correct use of words as "the use of words geared to appropriate objects & situations". I have no idea how these notions are supposed to be opposed to one another; they strike me as entailing one another. To have mastered a technique is to react appropriately to the relevant objects & situations -- to be able to ride a bike is to be able to get on a bike, pedal, and get from point A to point B without falling off or hitting anything, etc.. All techniques are normative; to be practising an art is to be doing it well or poorly. And all techniques are ways of getting around in the world, ways of coping with various objects & situations. The skillful use of a techique is the use of a technique geared appropriately to various objects & situations, and appropriateness is a normative matter.
Some scattered marginal notes I made on the last half of the paper:
I can use words as parts of sentences to perform various speech-acts (paradigmatically, assertions). "Use a word" is not such a speech-act. I can perform various speech acts correctly or incorrectly, well or poorly; I can say things that are true or false. I can't simply "use a word", and so there are no standards for what counts as the correct or incorrect "use of a word" that are not standards for what counts as the correct performance of some speech-act or other. But it's implausible that my causal interactions with the world are independent of whether or not I perform various speech-acts correctly or incorrectly. And it's implausible that there's anything to say about what, in general, using a word correctly requires; one can do many things with words.
It is entirely possible to learn to use a word without ever encountering something like Hacker's "meaning explanations" (""to dehort" means the same as "to advise against""). "Meaning explanations" are neither sufficient for teaching someone the use of a word, nor are they necessary. One can catch on to how a word is used, as with any other practice. An other can -- sometimes -- be taught to go on as I do. Other times, not. And sometimes they can go on as I do without my having instructed them.
As Quine, who is more explicit on these matters, has written, the child ‘is being trained by successive reinforcements and extinctions to say “red” on the right occasions and those only.’ But what makes an occasion right? Causal relations are contingent and external, but the ‘relation’ of the word ‘red’ to red things, the correctness of its application to red objects and the incorrectness of its application to green or blue ones, is not a contingent but an internal relation. If the ‘stimulus explanation’ causes the child to apply the word ‘red’ (or sentence ‘This is red’) to, and only to, poppies, what shows that it has misunderstood the explanation, that it is applying the word ‘red’ incorrectly, contrary to the explanation given?Nothing does. For he has done no such thing -- his "red"/"This is red" is not to be translated as our "red"/"This is red", but as our "poppies"/"These are poppies". And what we thought was our explaining to him how to use "red" was no such thing -- we were merely chattering at him, and he's gone off on his own way. And the path he's forged for himself is a perfectly serviceable one; there's nothing wrong with tracking flowers rather than colors. We might want to "correct" the child, so that he uses "red" as we do, but this is a merely grammatical matter, on a par with enforcing proper spelling. It doesn't actually hinder understanding if one person spells idiosyncratically, so long as they're readable**. And proper spelling by no means ensures comprehensibility. The two can come apart, and generally do -- it's rare that spelling errors actually make it hard to read something which would otherwise be readable. (Incidentally, Davidson is a terrible speller; he jokes about this in "The Social Aspect of Language".)
Ostensive definition looks as if it connects language to reality, but that is an illusion. It connects spoken language with the ‘language of gestures’.There is no such language as "the language of gestures". ASL is a language; gesturing is not. Gesturing is a type of action; languages are not types of actions. In the use of onstensive definitions, it is let on that a demonstrative should be understood to be pointing to a particular something-or-other. There is nothing special about ostensive definition; in general, one clarifies how one means a term by acting in such a way that (if all goes well) the other party will catch on -- will see as you see, will understand as you understand, will catch what one intended to do, to get across, to point out. "It is human practices which give words their meaning", but not any particular ones -- it is the whole mess of life that gives our words the meanings they have; "poetically man dwells". Davidson's focus on ostension in some of his essays is a dispensable tool for arguing for his views; "I think externalism applies universally; there are connections everywhere between the world and the contents of our thoughts."
"Whether the child is using ‘Moon!’ correctly is determined by whether he uses it in accordance with the rules for its use, which are given by the generally accepted explanations of its meaning" -- generally accepted by whom? A linguistic community? Who draws the boundaries between those? Which ones do we look to when we want to ask about "meaning explanations"? (see * again)
If someone earnestly asked me to explain what "if" meant, I shouldn't have the foggiest idea what to say to them. If being able to give "explanations of meaning" is really essential to being able to use a word correctly, then I can't say what I can say. So being able to give explanations of meaning isn't essential to understanding.
If I misuse words, then I might still be entirely transparent in my muttering. A little violence to the language ain't gonna do no harm to the hermyneutical enterprise. So lack of abuse of the use of my words can't be required for understanding.
If all I do is make stupid jokes, this doesn't mean I don't understand what you're saying to me. It just means I don't care to converse about whatever it is you're boring me with. If I never respond properly, this might be grounds for judging that I don't know what I'm responding to, but it could easily be wrong.
"All that matters is whether he satisfies our ordinary criteria of understanding, viz. using words correctly, giving correct explanations of meaning, and responding appropriately (intelligently) to the utterances of others. If he does, then he uses words with ‘the right meaning’." None of this matters for understanding; these are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions. Neither does "the right meaning" matter. I can mispeachify without a hitch to your being able to catch my drift. Nobody ever laid down rules for how I can & can't misuse words without you being unable to understand me. Laying down rules doesn't include a bit where you lay down how you can break them; breaking a rule is just doing something the rules didn't cover.
So, in summary: Hacker is wrong about many things, and Davidsonian views are not considered in "Davidson on Intention & Externalism".
*Amusingly, the way Davidson characterizes Burge's position in "Knowing One's Own Mind" is very similar to how Hacker presents his own (supposedly Wittgensteinian and supposedly non-externalist) doctrines: "I reject Burge's insistence that we are bound to give a person's words the meaning they have in his linguistic community, and to interpret his propositional attitudes on the same basis..." ("Knowing One's Own Mind", p.28 in SIO)
**I am not spellchecking this post because it amuses me so to not do. For similar reasons, I've left some ungrammatical phrasing ungrammatical.
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23 comments:
I'm less irenic than I normally like to be in this post, but I really disliked this essay. Sleeping on it didn't make me hate it less, either.
I know next to nothing about Davidson, so I am in no position to disagree with you about whether Hacker’s Davidson is a straw man. You obviously know quite a bit about Davidson, so I’ll happily take your word. It wouldn’t be the first time that a good philosopher (which I think Hacker is) seriously misread someone else.
Frege’s context principle is not (early or later) Wittgenstein’s context principle. For Wittgenstein, a word (type) has meaning if there are rules for its use. And there are rules for the use of a word whether or not the word is being used in a sentence. An explanation of the meaning of a word, is the giving of a rule for its use, e.g., “That is (called) ‘red’” (accompanied by pointing at a sample). Such explanations obviously play a role in language. We routinely teach our children the meanings of words with verbal and ostensive definitions. They are usually sufficient, and often necessary (I doubt children could be taught language without ostensive teaching of words and ostensive definitions). Undoubtedly, we can learn how to correctly use a word by catching on (i.e., in the absence of an explanation), nevertheless, rules are the standard of correctness. Thus, if someone who caught on to the correct use of a word were asked what he means and he was able to answer, he would answer with a rule (and his rule would be correct, partially correct, or incorrect). No doubt, we are able to correctly use some words which we cannot give the rule for, but that’s certainly not the norm. Any competent speaker can define most of the words they use.
I can't simply "use a word", and so there are no standards for what counts as the correct or incorrect "use of a word" that are not standards for what counts as the correct performance of some speech-act or other.
I don’t think that this is right. It seems that the rules for the use of a word are not the same as the rules for the use of a sentence in which the word occurs. But I’m not sure about this, so I’ll have to think about it.
His "red"/"This is red" is not to be translated as our "red"/"This is red", but as our "poppies"/"These are poppies". And what we thought was our explaining to him how to use "red" was no such thing – we were merely chattering at him, and he's gone off on his own way. And the path he's forged for himself is a perfectly serviceable one; there's nothing wrong with tracking flowers rather than colors. We might want to "correct" the child, so that he uses "red" as we do, but this is a merely grammatical matter, on a par with enforcing proper spelling.
Then how are we to make sense of the judgment: He has misunderstood the meaning of the word ‘red’? Obviously, this is something we want to say. There seems to me to be a great difference between a misuse and a misspelling. I understand you want to say that he isn’t misusing ‘red’, but merely using it differently. I don’t see a difference between these. If someone were to systematically make the kind of ‘mistake’ that he makes, we would say that he isn’t speaking English. And of course the English teacher does more than chatter at the student who doesn’t understand her explanation.
There is no such language as "the language of gestures". ASL is a language; gesturing is not. Gesturing is a type of action; languages are not types of actions. In the use of onstensive definitions, it is let on that a demonstrative should be understood to be pointing to a particular something-or-other.
Isn’t the gesture of pointing a symbol in the ostensive definition?
"Whether the child is using ‘Moon!’ correctly is determined by whether he uses it in accordance with the rules for its use, which are given by the generally accepted explanations of its meaning" – generally accepted by whom? A linguistic community? Who draws the boundaries between those? Which ones do we look to when we want to ask about "meaning explanations"?
Yes, a linguistic community. Why does anyone have to draw a boundary? It’s pretty obvious that someone who speaks only Russian isn’t a member of the English language community. There are other cases that are less obvious. Does the existence of the latter really call into question the fact that a large community of people use a large class of words in the same way? The simple test of whether two speakers belong to the same community is whether or not they can understand each other's sentences. There are borderline cases in understanding too, but again, that doesn’t jeopardize the idea of a common language. (This would be a good entry into a discussion of “Nice Derangement”).
Blast, forgot to check the follow up comments box.
"Any competent speaker can define most of the words they use."
I am very skeptical of this, at least if a definition is supposed to be non-circular. (If "'red' means red" is a definition, then of course I can define my words.) I'll grab one of my sentences and check:
"I'm less irenic than I normally like to be in this post"
I: Uh, first-person singular pronoun? Nominative form of "me"? Would these be suitable as "definitions" -- they seem harder to understand than the definiendum, which is a sign of a poor dictionary. "I'm Daniel" also doesn't seem like it's a definition. The idea of ostensively defining myself (perhaps by pointing at my head) seems perverse; if someone can't individuate persons, then my pointing is futile. I can imagine "defining" I by saying "ego, ich, boku" (or such foreign words), but a translation guidebook and a dictionary are things I should think Hacker/you/your Wittgenstein wants to keep separate.
"I'm" -- contraction for "I am". I suppose I can rest easy that this is a good definition.
"am" -- it's a being verb. I despair of giving anything like a sinn von Sein. I doubt that noting that it's a being verb counts as a definition; it merely points out that the word is part of a big group of words I don't know how to define.
"less" -- antonym of "more". I'm not actually sure if "antonym" is used that way. Inverse. I suspect that children learn these words by picking up various practices of comparison -- one can use "less" and "more" only because one can count ordinally (which I suspect is secondary to counting naturally). I don't think that it's possible to cash this out in terms of ostension; the kid doesn't just need to be pointed to the lesser and greater quantities, but needs to be able to pick out for herself which is which. (I think this also carries over more generally; I suspect you think ostensive definitions play a much greater role in language-acquisition than I'd be inclined to credit. I think any account of how one learns a language will have to make many references to practical capacities which aren't linguistic ones, or at least can be non-linguistic ones. Learning a language is part & parcel of learning one's way around the world generally.)
"than" -- nothing comes to mind. If I had to "define" it, I'd use it in sentences and say "that sort of thing". I don't know what a dictionary would put for "than". (When I'm tired, I sometimes write "less then". I suspect this may be related to my present difficulty.)
"normally" -- "typically" is a synonym. I notice that in this sentence, I could also have written "should like to be". But "should" doesn't seem like a synonym for "normally". If the question had been on a vocabulary test in gradeschool, I suspect that "typically" is the sort of response that would get me a check-mark.
(In second grade, I once lost credit because I defined "frontiersman" as "man of the frontier". I was told that this doesn't count, since those are parts of the word I was asked to define. I remember being annoyed by this -- if I understood the definition I gave, and it was right, then it didn't matter if it used parts of the word I was asked to define. And I did understand the definition I wrote, and it was substantially correct, so I should have gotten a checkmark!)
"like" -- "like to be" is something like "want to be" or maybe just "want". Again, if someone sincerely wanted me to define "like" I don't know what I'd say to them.
"to" -- ???
"be" -- haet being words
"in" -- as with "less", I think this is the sort of word you have to pick up alongside the practical capacity to make distinctions between various relations among objects -- here "inside" and "outside". I suspect that the word-distinction is actually secondary; I think the practical ability to make distinctions between the spatial relations of objects is something that (in a sense) can be had without language. And if someone doesn't have the capacity so to distinguish spatial relations, then I don't think they can be taught how to use the words, either.
"this" -- again, I suspect that being able to track what's being gestured at (in e.g. pointing) is a pre-linguistic foundation for the use of a word -- a requirement. Pre-linguistic infants can pick up on gestures, to an extent. Being able to look at a pointing finger and look in the direction that it's pointing is something babies grasp before they have enough of a vocabulary to use words like "this" or "there" or "that". If we encountered a race of beings which had radically different ways of gesturing, I expect it'd be very difficult to catch on to how we each used demonstratives. And if I'm supposed to define "this", I think that's the sort of task I have in front of me -- say how the word works without presuming that my hearer shares my gesture-practices. That seems really hard, and I don't know how to do it.
"post" -- it's the thing with a timestamp. I don't know what a definition for "post" would look like. I can imagine blogs (or blog-type things) where it's harder to individuate posts. I'm also not sure if a blog-post is the same sort of a post as a message-board-post or a listserv-post, or if these are two (or three) different sorts of post. (I don't see that it matters what one says here, but then that seems to imply that the definition doesn't matter either. Multiple inconsistent definitions might all work just as well, so long as we didn't run them together. "Say what you chose, so long as it does not prevent you from seeing the facts." --PI 79)
I am now firmly convinced: I doubt I can define most of my words. The contraction and "normally" are the only ones I didn't find hard to define in that sentence. If this makes me atypical, well, then so long as I can still speak intelligibly I don't mind being atypical, and I don't think anyone else should either. And I certainly don't think this atypicality makes a philosophical difference.
"Then how are we to make sense of the judgment: He has misunderstood the meaning of the word ‘red’? Obviously, this is something we want to say."
I don't think that there's a difference here between "misusing" and "mispelling". He's using "red" in a way that proper English doesn't allow. In some cases (such as elementary school) this is a big problem; in others, not. Suppose the kid carried over the same idiosyncrasy to other parts of his language: All of his color-words were our flower-words, and vice-versa. I think that'd be cute. Though it'd be a bit of a hassle to figure out what colors (or flowers) he was mentioning, before we caught on to how he was using the words. But once we get to know the weird little dude -- Hey, "Let a hundred colors bloom." If he's using words differently, or misusing our words, then well & good; it evinces a liveliness of spirit in the fellow if he's lightly bound by arbitrary conventions.
"If someone were to systematically make the kind of ‘mistake’ that he makes, we would say that he isn’t speaking English. And of course the English teacher does more than chatter at the student who doesn’t understand her explanation."
I think it's correct to say that he isn't speaking English if he speaks that oddly, if you want to talk that way; I just don't think that speaking English (or any other particular natural language) is all that important. There are good sociological/political reasons to speak English rather than a creole or pidgin (or a more idiolectical idiolect), but those are the only sorts of reasons to speak English. So far as sense & nonsense go, the weird minority tongues have the same claim as the big-name players.
If the English teacher says things, but none of them makes an impact, then she might as well have been going "yadda yadda yadda"; this is what I meant by saying she'd just been "chattering". She wasn't listened to, so what she said makes no difference. Certainly she was doing more than chattering, but this additional effort was to no effect; the difference was not a difference that made a difference, and such a difference is no difference.
"Isn’t the gesture of pointing a symbol in the ostensive definition?"
"This" is a word in a sentence such as "This is the right plant", or as it please you, a symbol. Understanding demonstratives generally depends on understanding certain sorts of actions, such as pointings-at, as being the actions they are. But a finger-pointing isn't a part of any sentence. (Hacker's wingdings character of a pointing hand is not itself a hand that is pointing; it's a pictogram that we can understand because we can see what he wants to say. If he was lecturing rather than writing, he'd just say "this" and point, and we'd see what he was saying.) Understanding what someone means by a sentence such as "This is the thing I'd mentioned to them earlier" depends on understanding quite a lot of other things -- his actions, his beliefs, his intentions, events in the world & his history, etc. There's no way to cleave off his language from the rest of him.
(I'm not entirely comfortable with this bit; I've never found the idiom of signs & symbols to be an easy one to carry on in, so I may be speaking at cross-purposes.)
"There are other cases that are less obvious. Does the existence of the latter really call into question the fact that a large community of people use a large class of words in the same way? The simple test of whether two speakers belong to the same community is whether or not they can understand each other's sentences. There are borderline cases in understanding too, but again, that doesn’t jeopardize the idea of a common language."
Yes it does (he harumphed).
There's no way to cash out the idea that a shared language is a prerequisite to two people understanding one another's utterances, as I regard "Epitaphs" as having shown.
"(This would be a good entry into a discussion of “Nice Derangement”)."
Yes it would. Have you read it yet? I haven't caught if you have or not; "The Social Aspect of Language" also seems important for the sorts of objections you seem attracted to. If you've read it, I'd be interesting in hearing what part of it you found less than compelling.
FYI, it turns out I had today's day of the week wrong, so I have to leave town in an hour or so to help move my sister out. So I might not be online much until sunday.
I thought today was wednesday; I did not have anything to do wednesday ;____;
Yr missing Hacker's point re Quine, which concerns universals, if not Mind itself. A child may learn what "Red" refers to by some triggering experience, but he obviously creates an idea or concept of Redness (whether one believes that "redness" floats in some platonic-fregean space or realizes itself neurologically), apart from particular instances. Nouns themselves are abstractions; the syntax-- and propositions--- higher orders of abstraction.........
There is also an intention problem isn't there: "Red" doesn't just float in, attached to protons and electrons, does it. The word "red" does not hang on a tree.
A fortiori, how does Jr. learn his times tables-- or integrals--- by association with external, perceivable reality, Skinner-Dan ???
Stimulus-response (and naturalism) can only go so far, and is itself just a model--questioning all those empirical assumptions (and Davidson, and Quine really ramped-up empiricists, as was Skinner) does not, however, mean one upholds the Ghost in the machine as it were--it means that empiricism has all sorts of limitations in regards to explaining how humans acquire knowledge .
""""Quine himself sketched the bare behaviourist outline of
what he took to be input and output, in what must be the most scintillating display of
armchair learning-theory bereft of empirical evidence since Locke – but that was no
contribution to naturalized epistemology.""""
Paddy PMSH. Ah yeah the Hack attack is baack. At the very least PMS realizes the dangers and shortcomings of the Quinean praise of.....Uncle Meat...........philosophers, even ones who really, really luv science (as Quine did), generally lack the requisite knowledge of perceptual psychology and cognition to make ANY statements about external events/objects and thinking and knowledge (that would include PMS as well)
I think it's correct to say that he isn't speaking English if he speaks that oddly, if you want to talk that way; I just don't think that speaking English (or any other particular natural language) is all that important. There are good sociological/political reasons to speak English rather than a creole or pidgin (or a more idiolectical idiolect), but those are the only sorts of reasons to speak English. So far as sense & nonsense go, the weird minority tongues have the same claim as the big-name players.
Important? In what sense? I agree that there’s no imperative to speak English. However, most of the people I talk to speak English. So, to understand them (and have them understand me) I have to speak English. Nonsense is relative to a language. My view is summed up by the following passage from the Philosophical Remarks: “It cannot be proved that it is nonsense to say of a colour that it is a semitone higher than another. I can only say ‘If anyone uses words with the meanings that I do, then he can connect no sense with this combination. If it makes sense to him, he must understand something different by these words from what I do.’” To this I would add: Lot’s of people use words with the meanings that I do because we speak the same language, namely, English. It follows that English speakers can connect no sense with this combination. Of course, the person who says that a color is a semitone higher than another could explain to us that by ‘semitone’ he means ‘shade’ and by ‘higher’ he means ‘lighter.’ We would then understand what he means (cf. Wittgenstein’s discussion of the diviner who says that he ‘feels’ the depth of the water in his hands). We understand because he has explained what he means using the words ‘shade’ and ‘brighter’ as we do. To which we might respond: Now I understand you, but this isn’t what we mean by ‘semitone’ and ‘higher.’
If the English teacher says things, but none of them makes an impact, then she might as well have been going "yadda yadda yadda"; this is what I meant by saying she'd just been "chattering". She wasn't listened to, so what she said makes no difference. Certainly she was doing more than chattering, but this additional effort was to no effect; the difference was not a difference that made a difference, and such a difference is no difference.
Her doing more than chattering had nothing to do with an extra effort. Her explanation was meaningful and correct (assuming she’s a good teacher). The fact that the student didn’t understand her is not an indictment of the meaningfulness of her words.
An ostensive gesture is an ‘action’ in the sense that making noises with my mouth is an ‘action.’ In this sense, every use of language is an ‘action.’ The word ‘that’ and a pointing gesture are equally bits of language. The difference between them is akin to that between writing and speaking.
I’ve given a quick glance at “Epitaphs,” but I need to give it a closer read before commenting on it.
"Meaning as use," or, PB Shelley or hip-hop--Bertrand Russell or Russell Crowe, whatever flavor you prefer.
or, as Russell (Bert. not Crowe) said "the silly things silly people say": c'est Ord. Language (and late Witt.)
"Important? In what sense?"
In the sense that if I don't speak English, or any other natural language, I will somehow fail to speak at all. This I deny.
I think the Wittgenstein quote evinces views incompatible with those of the author of Philosophical Investigations. If the philosopher's goal is to show up latent nonsense as patent nonsense, then if it's impossible to say whether something is nonsense or simply foreign or novel, this is a serious problem -- the philosopher might simply be labeled a boor. More problematically, the label might very well be correct; there is no way to make distinctions between "I can't understand p" where p is novel, where p is in a foreign tongue, and where p is nonsense, on this understanding of "nonsense", and anyone who runs together novelty & alterity with nonsense is boorish. But Wittgenstein was no boor; the fly only needs showing out in the case of the third type of incomprehensibility. And so I simply don't think that the remark from the Remarks can be the best formulation of Wittgenstein's approach to the matter.
(I note, in passing, that the remark from the Remarks also seems to depend on the analytic/synthetic distinction.)
"To which we might respond: Now I understand you, but this isn’t what we mean by ‘semitone’ and ‘higher.’"
Who's "we", kemosabe? Some of us mean odd things by our words, and like it that we. If this excludes us from membership in the "we", then so be it; if you want to deny that what is spoken is perfectly good English, then fine; it is every bit as usable as any other sort of talk. Monolingual English-speakers can understand things which aren't "in English", in this narrow sense. And it's only the individual events of understanding and not understanding that matter for anything.
"Her doing more than chattering had nothing to do with an extra effort. Her explanation was meaningful and correct (assuming she’s a good teacher). The fact that the student didn’t understand her is not an indictment of the meaningfulness of her words."
Certainly her words were meaningful; idle chatter is still talk. You seem to have taken umbrage with my formulation; when I denied that anything was explained to him, I meant it in the sense that a package which is not signed for has not been delivered. Of course there's a sense in which it was delivered; but the recipient didn't receive it, and so the delivery is no delivery -- it was a waste of the postman's time.
"An ostensive gesture is an ‘action’ in the sense that making noises with my mouth is an ‘action.’ In this sense, every use of language is an ‘action.’ The word ‘that’ and a pointing gesture are equally bits of language. The difference between them is akin to that between writing and speaking."
I don't see how the that:pointing::writing:speaking analogy is supposed to work at all. Being able to point and follow pointings doesn't require language; I believe pre-linguistic infants and some non-human animals can do as much. Pointing is normative, but it isn't linguistic.
I agree that any use of language will constitute an action; my claim is that actions which do not so constitute uses of language must also be understood as what they are if acts of language usage are to be understood as what they are. I don't think the relevant class of actions (whatever they turn out to be on any particular occasion) are usefully considered as constructed from "symbols" in the way that sentences are constructed from words. (But then we also disagree on the way sentences are composed of words.)
Looking forward to the "Epitaphs" post.
Pay no attention to someone who reads Quine (or Quineans) as crypto-idealist OR platonist.
(Hey S-Dan ever hear of the Churchlands? That's where Quinean naturalism leads to: searching for the neurological coordinates for say Modus Ponens, which according to WVOQ is as "posteriori" as any finding in the the physical sciences.....bon chance....).
D.L.: "Hacker notes that the learning of a language is the mastering of a technique, and that the technique mastered is a normative, rule-governed one. This is entirely correct & salutary. But he notes this to oppose the characterization of the correct use of words as "the use of words geared to appropriate objects & situations"."
I have some question about "rule-governed" and "entirely" in these sentences. If words, or sentences, or criteria, are to be seen as tools, (as Wittgenstein sometimes invites us), would "rule-governed" mean the same thing as "tool-governed"? I think not. Are we to conclude that we cannot use these tools, without knowing the rules which govern them? Part of the problem with Wittgenstein is that he, (and his followers), would like to compare language to mathematics, leaving some sense in which the "rules" float out there, apart from their application (Wittgenstein notices this danger repeatedly, and backs away from it again and again, his followers are not so supple in thought). I think this problem shows up in the phrase "rule-governed". What is the exact purview of the governance by rules? And given your use of "entirely", how is it that we can conceive of a "technique" being "governed" (reducible?) to rules?
Read what Stephen Yarborough writes regarding "rule" and "technique" in his take on Davidson in “Passing Theories through Topical Heuristics":
"Davidson will claim that communicative competence “cannot be taught.” By “cannot be taught,” it should now be clear, Davidson means that the process cannot be conveyed merely formally in the way one can convey, say, mathematics. Discourse, like all intercourse, is a skill that can be developed not through “book learning” but through a process of interaction with things and people. We may learn in abstraction what a topical relation is formally, but we can learn what it means pragmatically only through discursive interaction, through the back and forth of anticipation and revision of our words’ effects. The chef ephebe must learn through trial and error, through attempt and correction, through question and answer with the master how and to what degree each ingredient, temperature alteration, and so on, affects the balance of tastes, the consistency, and the texture of a base and so the very meaning of “First you make a roux.” A recipe hardly conveys this knowledge, this skill of adjustment and interaction, and the recipe alone means little if anything to anyone who does not already understand the topical relations the recipe implies. The beginner cook cannot really understand the language of the recipe, the intention of the writer, until he has made the étouffée, and made it properly (88-89)."
Now, is the technique of making the étouffée "governed" by rules? Is it found in the recipe? Or in the rule-like advisements which are meant to guide one to achieving this technique (until beige?). I find it quite problematic to slip into this notion of "rule-governance", something we are always tempted to do when thinking about behavior as dictated somehow. If anything, Davidson taught us (and I think that even Wittgenstein would agree) that rules and their application are always provisional. There really is no "governance". One certainly can describe the consonance of effects, post fact, in a rule-like fashion. And one can of course when justifying one's claims, appeal to rules, as part of a process of coming to agreement. But I think this still leaves us short of "rule-governance", for their is no rule for how to use rules, (which would only require another rule in how to use it).
I think you are dead on as to the Hacker essay. Frankly I was stunned to see how confused Hacker was, regarding the views he supposedly objected to. It really was nearly as if he objected to Davidson without reading him, as if he was pressed into having to respond, institutionally to Davidson, since Davidson is vying for many of the same intellectual constituents whom Wittgenstein preoccupies. It was as if he had to answer the question for the umpteenth time, "So what do you think of all this Davidson stuff?"
And I agree as well, that technique is buried in the conditions in which one needs to apply it. It is only the Wittgensteinian bent, desirous of seeing language as rule-following, as certain kind of collective obedience and formation, which steers "meaning as use" away from the larger "rest of the mechanism" observations that, in my mind, Davidson provided for a Wittgensteinian outlook. This, on the main, is the causal conceptual nature of belief, both how beliefs are caused by a shared world, and how beliefs cause intentional action. What Davidson does is help flesh-out much of how rule-following, and ostensive definition gets off the ground. A teacher's: "That...is red" cannot really take hold unless one has the accompanying belief on the part of the student, "He thinks that is red." and the constitutive sense that events in the world are causing the teacher to hold that belief. This is the rational context for Wittgenstein's rule-followings, and in fact compliments it quite well. And if not for Wittgenstein categorically absolute distinction between reason and cause (an important one, but not an absolute one), the two schools of thought would map quite neatly onto each other.
kvond
http://kvond.wordpress.com/category/vico/
"I have some question about "rule-governed" and "entirely" in these sentences."
They were both pleonasms. "Normative" is the word that I'd actually want to do work for me; rule-talk and the adverb just help the sentence along. I suspect the same is true of Hacker; I've parroted his wording from the bottom of p.545. Though Hacker & I almost certainly disagree on a variety of matters vis-a-vis normativity, I'm happy to endorse his phrasing here.
I don't see the conflict between rule-talk and tool-talk. There can be rules for the use of tools. Orderings are certainly a toolish use of language, but it seems odd to deny that there are any rules regarding practices of giving & responding to orders. One can't "give orders" too irregularly, or one wouldn't be giving orders.
I also don't see why you think Wittgenstein thought that mathematical rules floated free of our practices, or that he tried to assimilate this picture to the rest of language. I'd rather thought of Wittgenstein as one of the most notable anti-Platonists in the philosophy of mathematics, and certainly I don't think he was a Platonist more generally.
"And given your use of "entirely", how is it that we can conceive of a "technique" being "governed" (reducible?) to rules?"
I don't see that anything could be "reduced to" rules, except perhaps a more cumbersome set of rules. And I don't see what my use of "entirely" in modifying "correct & salutary" has to do with anything. If you mean to deny that know-how is a species of "knowledge-that", then I agree with that. But I don't see how this makes it mysterious that techniques can be rule-governed; there are standards by which batting is judged, but batting is certainly a technique. And "standard" is the sense in which "rule" is used in "rule-governed". To be rule-governed is just for there to be right & wrong ways about the matter, for the matter to be normative.
"Davidson will claim that communicative competence “cannot be taught.” By “cannot be taught,” it should now be clear, Davidson means that the process cannot be conveyed merely formally in the way one can convey, say, mathematics. Discourse, like all intercourse, is a skill that can be developed not through “book learning” but through a process of interaction with things and people."
I don't see how mathematics could be learned otherwise than through a process of interaction with things and people. Certainly this is how it is taught to children. And some people never catch on to anything beyond the most basic arithmetic; and then some people can't even count. So I don't see that there really is anything which can be conveyed "merely formally". Learning something is like the acquiring of a technique, in this respect. The pupil always has to do part of the work, and sometimes they're not able to do what's needed.
"Now, is the technique of making the étouffée "governed" by rules? Is it found in the recipe? Or in the rule-like advisements which are meant to guide one to achieving this technique (until beige?)."
Yes, no, and no, respectively. One bakes "in accordance with the rules" when one bakes well. Recipes & advice are dispensable in baking, though generally not for a novice. But to have done with the rule of proper baking would be to not bake.
"But I think this still leaves us short of "rule-governance", for their is no rule for how to use rules, (which would only require another rule in how to use it)."
This notion of "rule-governance" would evacuate the term of all sense; charity would seem to advise against such a tendentious reading of "rule-governance". Being governed by rules is not like being moved by clockwork. Rules don't work in that sort of fashion -- the motive force is not always another rule. Which I take to be a Wittgensteinian point -- so I'm not sure how you're meaning to oppose such sentiments to Wittgenstein. And Davidson himself said nice things about Wittgenstein, and was always happy to see endorse those who argued that they were working the same ground.
For instance, see Davidson's response to Jim Hopkins's essay in the "Library of Living Philosophers" volume on Davidson. Notice that Davidson mentions this essay repeatedly while responding to other essays in the volume; he really, really liked being told that his work was "complementary and compatible (at least more than one might have thought" with Wittgenstein's work. "Maybe those long hours I spent years ago admiring and puzzling over the Investigations were not spent in vain."
D. L.:“They were both pleonasms. "Normative" is the word that I'd actually want to do work for me; rule-talk and the adverb just help the sentence along.”
kvond: Then “pleonasm” would be a strange word to have used here, unless you think that “rule-governed” and “rule-talk” is somehow synonymous. Talky talk about rules, and claiming that rules govern strike me as different things. Maybe it is just me. One cannot really break rules in mathematics, but one does it ALL the time in language (hence metaphors).
D.L.:“One can't "give orders" too irregularly, or one wouldn't be giving orders.”
kvond: Do you feel that way in regards to mathematics?
D.L.: “I also don't see why you think Wittgenstein thought that mathematical rules floated free of our practices, or that he tried to assimilate this picture to the rest of language.
kvond: I strictly said that this was NOT what Wittgenstein believed. But it is a tendency in that picture of language.
D.L. :I don't see that anything could be "reduced to" rules, except perhaps a more cumbersome set of rules. And I don't see what my use of "entirely" in modifying "correct & salutary" has to do with anything.
kvond: Honestly then, when modifying a phrase like “rule-talk” I don’t know what entirely means. If it is benign, I let it rest. I thought you were making a specific, and categorical point about “governance”.
D.L.: If you mean to deny that know-how is a species of "knowledge-that", then I agree with that. But I don't see how this makes it mysterious that techniques can be rule-governed; there are standards by which batting is judged, but batting is certainly a technique.
kvond: Batting certainly can be “judged”. This does not mean “batting is rule-governed”. Picassos and beauty queens can be judged, just does not mean that such judgment is rule-governed. Metaphors are good or bad, but there is no rule for how to make a metaphor (See Davidson’s “What Metaphors Mean”).
D.L.: And "standard" is the sense in which "rule" is used in "rule-governed". To be rule-governed is just for there to be right & wrong ways about the matter, for the matter to be normative.
kvond: Then what is the “standard” for a good metaphor, or a good joke, or a good tune?
D.L.: “This notion of "rule-governance" would evacuate the term of all sense; charity would seem to advise against such a tendentious reading of "rule-governance". Being governed by rules is not like being moved by clockwork. Rules don't work in that sort of fashion -- the motive force is not always another rule.
kvond: Hmmmm. Charity? Perhaps instead of having to be “charitable” towards the use of an explanatory phrase, one should ask that the phrase be changed, so that it does more of the work it suggests it does (many of Wittgenstein’s explanatory phrases also suffer from this need for charity). Should one just be "charitable" towards Kant's use of the explantory word "faculty"? Charity requires that things not be questioned “too” deeply, don’t look “too” hard at what I am saying. Things get said like, “rule-governance” is just a phrase for “rule-talk”. This really is not how philosophy, even the Wittgenstein sort, works. Part of USING rules is being able to follow rules, and break rules. It is being governed by them, and NOT. To pass this rule-breaking aspect back onto the “situation”in which rules being used occur, misses something, and it misses what Davidson is trying to bring out in Wittgenstein, that there is an entire causal and conceptual matrix in which rule governance and rule breaking occurs. It is for this reason I suspect, that Davidson does not employ such talk, and in fact argues against “rules” being the thing that people have to share to make sense of each other.
D.L.: “Which I take to be a Wittgensteinian point -- so I'm not sure how you're meaning to oppose such sentiments to Wittgenstein. And Davidson himself said nice things about Wittgenstein, and was always happy to see endorse those who argued that they were working the same ground.”
kvond: Well there is a strong disagreement between Davidson and Wittgenstein(ians) over the reason/cause distinction, that is, whether reasons can be causes as well. This is huge divergence. Most of my problems come from interpreters of Wittgenstein, since Wittgenstein himself was adroit enough to remain gnomic on the most sensitive issues.
D.L.: “Notice that Davidson mentions this essay repeatedly while responding to other essays in the volume; he really, really liked being told that his work was "complementary and compatible (at least more than one might have thought" with Wittgenstein's work. "Maybe those long hours I spent years ago admiring and puzzling over the Investigations were not spent in vain."
kvond: I think Davidson's debt to Wittgenstein is enormous. He constructs his entire triangulation of three knowledges (a core conception of his) around Wittgenstein’s Private Language argument, it would seem. Wittgenstein is very special to Davidson. But there is a divide between the two thinkers. Davidson entire: “beliefs and reasons” are the causes of intentional behavior is not abidable by Wittgensteinians.
Thanks for the good thoughts, and the opportunity to discuss them. I admire your thinking.
kvond
http://kvond.wordpress.com/
p.s.
Read from above:
"D.L.: One can't "give orders" too irregularly, or one wouldn't be giving orders.
kvond: Do you feel that way in regards to mathematics?"
kvdi:"Do you feel that way in regards to metaphors?"
(I miss wrote.)
Discourse, like all intercourse, is a skill that can be developed not through “book learning” but through a process of interaction with things and people
Holy Serendipity batman. Wittgenstein's brainfarts regarding "speech acts": sort of like anthropology for Log Cabin republicans (or paraphrasing Russell, who cares about the silly things that silly plebes say). Davidson's sort of like Quine-lite==-Quine in ebonics.....Quinbonix be representin' in da house
D.L.
I've thought about it a bit, thinking on what the problem with "rule-governed" is. There would, if one were to talk about the way one walks in the wood, one might very well call such an activity "path-following" but it would mean something more to call it "path-governed".
I think also saying that language use is rule-governed does something to mistake "use" with a much narrower, Davidsonian idea of "meaning". As Rorty noted the Quinian idea: meaning is but a portion of cleared-away ground in the jungle of use. One follows rules or not, but these rules too are being used. One can break or keep them, just as we can break or keep paths.
This is the way that Rorty talks about metaphor as "use" which expresses something of my objection of reducing "use" to rule-governance. (If I recall, Davidson approved of Rorty's defense of his take on metpahor and meaning):
"In Quine’s image, the realm of meaning is a relatively small ‘cleared’ area within the jungle of use, one whose boundaries are constantly being both extended and encroached upon. To say, as Davidson does, that ‘metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use’ is simply to say that, because metaphors (while still alive) are unparaphrasable, they fall outside the cleared area.” (Rorty, "Unfamiliar noises: Hesse and Davidson on metaphor," 1991, 164)
"Then “pleonasm” would be a strange word to have used here, unless you think that “rule-governed” and “rule-talk” is somehow synonymous. Talky talk about rules, and claiming that rules govern strike me as different things."
By "rule-talk" I meant my use of terms like "rule-governed". If that term bothers you that much, I don't think it changes anything in my post to strike it out, in the one place where I used it. Which is what I meant by saying it was pleonastic -- it's a redundant phrase.
"Maybe it is just me. One cannot really break rules in mathematics, but one does it ALL the time in language (hence metaphors)."
I don't see how speaking metaphorically breaks any rules. It's a non-literal use of a certain string, but there's nothing that says that only the literal use of words is permissible. And one certainly can break rules in mathematics, for instance by neglecting to carry a 1, or by drawing bizarre consequences from e.g. Godel's incompleteness theorem.
"D.L.:“One can't "give orders" too irregularly, or one wouldn't be giving orders.”
kvond: Do you feel that way in regards to mathematics?"
Sure, why shouldn't I? If one "adds sums" too irregularly, then one simply isn't adding them. (Occasional errors could simply mean that one added poorly; constant errors would show that one can't add at all.)
"Honestly then, when modifying a phrase like “rule-talk” I don’t know what entirely means. If it is benign, I let it rest. I thought you were making a specific, and categorical point about “governance”."
"Entirely" was modifying the phrase "correct & salutary", not "rule-talk" (which isn't even a phrase that occurs in the post). You can strike it out if you like, so that I would have written "This is correct & salutary." Which alternative formulation I'm happy to endorse; I don't see that it changes anything significant to remove the word "entirely".
I don't know what sort of categorical point you thought I might have been making about "governance".
"Batting certainly can be “judged”. This does not mean “batting is rule-governed”. Picassos and beauty queens can be judged, just does not mean that such judgment is rule-governed. Metaphors are good or bad, but there is no rule for how to make a metaphor (See Davidson’s “What Metaphors Mean”)."
I suspect we simply vary in our use of "rule". I have no problems saying that the goodness or badness of metaphors is a normative, rule-governed matter (and one which is sensitive to particular contexts etc.), and AFAIK I don't have any opinions on metaphor that I haven't simply taken up wholesale from Davidson & Rorty.
"Then what is the “standard” for a good metaphor, or a good joke, or a good tune?"
Good metaphors are suggestive; good jokes are funny; good tunes are catchy. Of course there are all sorts of other standards one might use, too, depending on why one cared about a particular metaphor/joke/tune. But I don't think that the notion of a joke would be comprehensible apart from the notion that one was aiming at some fairly particular purpose (generally, for jokes, making your audience laugh).
"Should one just be "charitable" towards Kant's use of the explantory word "faculty"?"
Yes. Kant doesn't have a "faculty psychology", and so one misreads him if one reads that sense of "faculty" into his texts. Which is why Pluhar translates Vermogen as "power" rather than "faculty". If you want to complain about Kant's writing, feel free. It's often clunky.
"This is huge divergence. Most of my problems come from interpreters of Wittgenstein, since Wittgenstein himself was adroit enough to remain gnomic on the most sensitive issues."
He was also dead by the time it was contentious. Given that Wittgenstein's examples for causal relations are generally ones taken from the natural sciences, his distinction between reasons & causes strikes me as simply doing the same work that Sellars's distinction between the "space of reasons" and the "space of causes" does. Which is to say, Davidson's reminder that reasons can be causes doesn't actually change the point being made; it simply means that it needs reformulating, with more sensitivity to the relationship between causation and the sort of causation which occurs under natural laws.
""Do you feel that way in regards to metaphors?""
I'll respond to both, since why not: Sure, I think there are good and bad metaphors. Which is all I mean to say by saying that metaphorical meaning is "rule-governed", i.e., normative. (I hasten to note that in speaking of "metaphorical meaning" I follow Davidson: "In my essay What Metaphors Mean I was foolishly stubborn about the word meaning when all I cared about was the primacy of first meaning." -- Footnote 7 from "Locating Literary Language".)
"(If I recall, Davidson approved of Rorty's defense of his take on metpahor and meaning)"
You recall correctly. Davidson mentions in his video interview with Rorty (which we've both linked) that he thinks Rorty got him exactly right in that essay.
I'm not actually sure that we disagree on any substantive matter; it seems to me we are quibbling over rhetoric. I think that talk of "rules" is perfectly well domesticatable; you want to drop it, because you think it has too much baggage.
D.L. I don't see how speaking metaphorically breaks any rules.
If you are accepting Davidson’s view, read his “What Do Metaphors Mean”.
D. L. I don't know what sort of categorical point you thought I might have been making about "governance".
Since you insist that a great deal of charity is necessary in interpreting it, neither do I.
D. L. I suspect we simply vary in our use of "rule". I have no problems saying that the goodness or badness of metaphors is a normative, rule-governed matter (and one which is sensitive to particular contexts etc.), and AFAIK I don't have any opinions on metaphor that I haven't simply taken up wholesale from Davidson & Rorty.
You sound in direct contradiction Davidson on metaphor. Have you read the essay?
D. L Good metaphors are suggestive; good jokes are funny; good tunes are catchy.
What is the rule for finding something “suggestive”? Or making one suggestive? (You use “rule” in an interesting way.)
D. L. He was also dead by the time it was contentious. Given that Wittgenstein's examples for causal relations are generally ones taken from the natural sciences, his distinction between reasons & causes strikes me as simply doing the same work that Sellars's distinction between the "space of reasons" and the "space of causes" does. Which is to say, Davidson's reminder that reasons can be causes doesn't actually change the point being made; it simply means that it needs reformulating, with more sensitivity to the relationship between causation and the sort of causation which occurs under natural laws.
You strike me as unfamiliar with the debate. What can I say. Davidson himself refers to the disagreement.
""Do you feel that way in regards to metaphors?""
D. L.: I'll respond to both, since why not: (I hasten to note that in speaking of "metaphorical meaning" I follow Davidson: "In my essay What Metaphors Mean I was foolishly stubborn about the word meaning when all I cared about was the primacy of first meaning." -- Footnote 7 from "Locating Literary Language".)
This does not abrogate his extensive treatment of what meaning is in the essay, nor his positive appraisal of Rorty’s defense of just that. You take a “footnote” in replacement of his entire essay. Interesting.
D. L. :You recall correctly. Davidson mentions in his video interview with Rorty (which we've both linked) that he thinks Rorty got him exactly right in that essay.
Then you are confused if you think that you can attribute a “rule governance” position to all language use to Davidson. This, in many ways, is exactly what he would not accept.
D.L.: I'm not actually sure that we disagree on any substantive matter; it seems to me we are quibbling over rhetoric. I think that talk of "rules" is perfectly well domesticatable; you want to drop it, because you think it has too much baggage.
I don’t find the differences between the Wittgenstein position on reasons and causes (with reasons being the purview of philosophy, and causes that of psychology), and Davidson’s to be “rhetorical” differences. I certainly do see normativity playing a very large roll in language use. The disagreement is over just where and how the normativity makes its effect.
Yes, I have read "What Metaphors Mean". Have you read "Locating Literary Language"?
"The usefulness of the concept of first meaning emerges when we consider cases where what is stated or implied differs from what the words mean. "Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines" means that the sun sometimes shines too brightly. But the first meaning of "the eye of heaven" purports to refer to the one and only eye of heaven. We can tell this because Shakespeare (we assume) intended to use words that would be recognized by a reader to refer to the one and only eye of heaven (if such a thing existed) in order to prompt the reader to understand that he meant the sun. We may wish to use the word "meaning" for both the first meaning and what the metaphor carries us to, but only the first meaning has a systematic place in the language of the speaker." And then he appends the footnote I quoted earlier to the end of this paragraph. Davidson doesn't revise his view of metaphor here; he simply admits that his earlier phrasing was needlessly at variance with natural usage. "Meaning" in "What Metaphors Mean" is just the "first meaning" of Davidson's post-"Epitaphs" essays.
"What is the rule for finding something “suggestive”? Or making one suggestive? (You use “rule” in an interesting way.)"
Metaphors are suggestive if they lead their hearer to relevantly interesting connections. If you want a rule which could be applied from outside the "interpretive stance", I don't think there are any. But that holds for rules generally.
I use "rule" in the sense of "standard" or "canon" or "norm". I prefer "norm", among this cluster of more-or-less-synonyms, but you've fixated on my occasional use of "rule", and so I'm presently stuck defending it as harmless.
"You strike me as unfamiliar with the debate. What can I say. Davidson himself refers to the disagreement."
I don't think the debate is very important, so I haven't read much of the other side of it; I'll get around to reading Anscombe at some point, but I haven't yet. Davidson does note that many Wittgenstein-influenced philosophers have denied that reasons can be causes, but I don't think the disagreement actually comes to much of importance. I take the denial that reasons can be causes to be an oscillation away from the identification of rational causes with nomic causes to the opposite extreme, where rational explanations are supposed to be causal in no sense. If the Wittgenstein-influenced authors Davidson cites (Anscombe, Ryle, Kenny etc.) are actually more befuddled then this, then so much the worse for them; I think Wittgenstein simply makes the same sort of mis-step that Sellars does in opposing the "space of reasons" to the "space of causes". Which I think is a misstep which is entirely remediable, and which is undertaken because of reasons Davidson would find admirable, as McDowell's reading of Sellars brings out.
"I don’t find the differences between the Wittgenstein position on reasons and causes (with reasons being the purview of philosophy, and causes that of psychology), and Davidson’s to be “rhetorical” differences."
I don't think you're being fair to Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein doesn't claim that "reasons" are the purview of philosophy; philosophy doesn't have a purview, in that sense. It's a motley. Giving & asking for reasons is part of our everyday ways of getting around in the world, not something peculiar to philosophy. If philosophy can be said to have a purview, for Wittgenstein, it's just that of clearing up bits of our thinking that have gone all kerflooey. Which could happen in psychology as well as anywhere else.
And I don't think that Davidson's amendment of Wittgenstein here amounts to much, in the greater scheme of things. I suppose if you're surrounded by latter-day opponents of the thesis that reasons can be causes, then things might seem otherwise.
One can break or keep them, just as we can break or keep paths.
SO much for Quine the naturalist (and foe of consciousness, or "mentalism" as his palsie Skinner called it). Any rules--syntactical, logical, even scientific--are there because, like, nature ordered it so.
Most of the Richie Cunninghams and Potsies of Philo-land don't quite understand the implications of snuffing the Cartesian ghost........
D.L.
I'm sorry to have wasted your time. From my perspective you seem to be less familiar with the issues than I had hoped, and I really am not interested in making "being fair (or offering charity) to Wittgenstein" the over-riding goal of my critisms.
Davidson thought the issue to be significant, that you don't perhaps means that you understand it better than Davidson did, or perhaps you don't really understand what Davidson was putting forth, who knows. I'll bet of Davidson.
Really though, the best to you,
kvond
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